Nesher’s Involvement in the Occupation

Update | Nov 2014

Nesher does indeed profit from the occupation through providing its cement products to the illegal Israeli settlements, the apartheid wall and other occupation related projects. This is in addition to the monopoly it holds over the Palestinian and Israeli cement markets

Following publications on the UN-sponsored agreement for the reconstruction of Gaza, Who Profits received many questions regarding the involvement of Israeli corporations in the procurement contracts in the reconstruction agreements. Some of these queries dealt specifically with the origin of the natural resources used by Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises – one of the Israeli suppliers profiting from the aid funds invested in the rebuilding of the Strip. We conducted a thorough research on the topic, but we did not find any proof that the company uses natural resources from the nine Israeli quarries which are currently active in the West Bank.

It is pertinent however to highlight that Nesher does indeed profit from the occupation through providing its cement products to the illegal Israeli settlements, the apartheid wall and other occupation related projects (as mentioned in the following link). This is in addition to the monopoly it holds over the Palestinian and Israeli cement markets. According to a publication by Nesher (2014): “Revenues from the Palestinian Authority, which is the largest customer of the company, are historically 20% of total revenues”.

Nesher uses the West Bank economy as a captive market through its agreement with the Palestinian Authority, in addition to working actively in the checkpoints in the West Bank, to stop any form of competition with Nesher on supplying cement.

According to an investigation on Nesher by the Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker in 2012: “Miro A’miel, an employee of Nesher, claims that he goes to the border crossings (Jordan-West Bank) and makes life difficult to anyone who wants to compete with Nesher when it comes to delivering cement to the Palestinian market.”

Although Nesher denies these claims, Drucker provides proofs that concretely on the ground, Nesher controls the cement shipments through the checkpoints in the West Bank.

Moreover, according to Drucker’s report Nesher brings Israeli security officials to meetings with the Palestinian Authority. For example, Nesher held the former head of the Civil Administration in ‘Judea and Samaria’ (West Bank) as an advisor.